Gasser Heaven

Don Waldron once traded a fiberglass Model T body for a gennie steel '32 Ford five- window. The owner of the '32 thanked him for such a great deal. Don has owned 100-plus Willys race cars. The only reason you have one is because Don let you. American Racing asks Don for info about its own wheels. After a concert, Don watched the Beach Boys lose badly in a street race between their Stingray and a local Ridgecrest, California, hot rodder's 409-powered '57 Chevy. An off-the-cuff comment by Don made the band see the value of the 409, and a hit song was born. Don has never tried to build a hot rod. He just does it. He is the most interesting hot rodder in the world.

The street race really did happen, but we don't know for sure if Don inspired the boys--who didn't actually surf--to write that song. We know for a fact, though, that Don is magnetic. People with great parts are attracted to him like a greaser to PBR, which explains the waiting list to have his shop, Rods West, build Gassers for clients. It also explains the gold mine of vintage tin, engines, and speed parts surrounding the desert-based shop. Don's had guys buy parts from him and then end up moving cross-country to come work with him. In the '70s, not only did he convince his girlfriend's mother to park his '32 in her daughter's bedroom, but his future mother-in-law sanded the car down to bare steel for him--by hand! It was the first and last mother-son bedroom project build. Like we said, he's an interesting character, and so is his shop.

The dirt surrounding the wood-framed buildings of Rods West looks as if a junkyard fell from the heavens and landed perfectly into neatly organized piles of spare parts all waiting to be assembled into excellence. Don grew up handing out timeslips at Pomona in the late '60s, striping and lettering race cars in L.A. County during the '70s, and building hot rods since the '80s in Ridgecrest, California. He knows everyone, has seen things we've only read about in hot rodding history, and yet, incredibly, the drag racer, pinstriper, painter, engine builder, and chassis man is easygoing and amiable, without a hint of ego.

He doesn't work alone and has a talented shop crew that will follow him anywhere. Larry Wagner owned a Don Long Top Fuel Dragster from '71 to '73, crewed on Barry Setzer's Funny Car, and worked on Steve Davis' Sprint Car when he won the Ascot championship. He's now the senior guy at Rods West and is building a '50 Ford. Don's son, Sean, does all the final assembly and owns a '27 lowboy roadster and a '62 Nova wagon. Marty Knox tackles the majority of the fabrication and sheetmetal work, while Bruce Green does the wrenching and keeps the trucks and trailers in shape. Bruce owns several '73–'79 Chevy C10s. Jared Woodridge is the youngest of the bunch, willing to help anywhere he's needed, and is into all styles of hot rods. Randy Coffee does fab work and assembly on a part-time basis. He owns a '40 Willys pickup and is currently building a '59 Hilman wagon.

5/57The engine-shop portion of the building is now used for storage. Don prefers to let Blair's or a few other trusted builders take care of customers' powerplants.

But Don's in charge, and he is opinionated, especially when it comes to building hot rods, so we picked his brain to discover his way of building a Gasser project. Here, we present Don's world, and the Gasser world according to Don.

The Five Wheels You Can Put on the Front of a Gasser

Don has spent the last two decades collecting and restoring racing wheels. Though he never worked at any of the wheel companies that built the sought-after wheels of the '60s and '70s, Don has become an authority on all things magnesium and aluminum. At one point--before Willys, Austins, Henry Js, and Chevys began popping up-- the yard around his shop was covered front to back in original wheels. He's sold the majority of them to racers and restorers but still maintains a decent stock of Daisies, Sprints, Cyclones, and real Torque Thrusts. Here's a look at the wheels Don says look right on a gasser.

(from left to right) Halibrand released the kidney bean–shaped wheels for sprint cars in late 1958 to early 1959. In 2000, Don worked with ET Wheels to reproduce the wheels with an important design change: the center of the wheel is 0.750- inch thick instead of the original 0.500-inch design, which was done to meet modern Department of Transportation standards. Like the originals, these are available in 15x4.5 and 15x6-inch sizes. An interesting bit of info from Don: Sprint Car racers sometimes flipped the left side wheels around for less ofset on that side of the car to improve handling around corners.

This is a vintage US Mag Indy slotted mag that was released in '67–'68. It was produced in 15x4.5, 15x7, 15x6 (very rare), 15x8.5, 15x10, 15x12, and 15x15 sizes.

Except for wheels made especially for his own race cars, Mickey Thompson didn't build any magnesium rollers in the '60s. The MT Medallion is a rare wheel produced between 1967 and 1969; the one-piece castaluminum wheel came in 14x6 and 15x8-inch sizes.

Vic Beith developed this 10-spoke nod to the original spindle-mount wheels, which racers ran without front brakes. The new version is a one-piece cast wheel in 15x4.5 and 15x6-inch widths, behind which you can fit 11-inch discs. Don says it's an extremely strong design.

<STRONG>16</STRONG> Marty Knox has been trading Don lumber for chassis parts for 14 years. Don used the lumber to build his new shop. When the mill he worked at closed, Marty's kids convinced him to go to Wyotech to learn to build hot rods. Last year, he hightailed it to Ridgecrest to work alongside Don at Rods West. It took the crew about three weeks to take Marty's '41 Willys body and turn it into a roller. The engine is a blown 392 Hemi with a Junior Thompson short-block and heads by Joe Reath. A Mike's Transmissions Powerglide is connected to a Currie 9-inch. The headers are old S&S pieces designed for a fat-fendered Ford car that we hear Jerry Jardine is now building again.

The Five Wheels You Can Put On The Rear Of A Gasser

01 This is a 16x10-inch American Racing magnesium wheel that Don restored
by shot-peening it and then coating it in WD-40 so it would tarnish a dark
charcoal color.
02 Note the porosity in this polished 15x10-inch American Racing roundedspoke
wheel. It's notoriously difcult to maintain the finish on magnesium;
it oxidizes faster than you can polish it.
03 The classic American Racing 200S (aka the Daisy, aka the Coke bottle) is
shown here in a 15x10. The Two-Lane Blacktop '55 Chevy movie car made this
one real popular.
04 Halibrand Sprints are hard to find and look perfect on the rear of a
Gasser. The cast-aluminum wheels came in 15x8, 15x10, 15x12, 15x15, 16x8,
16x10, 16x12, and 16x13 sizes.
05 Every car seen in '70s and early '80s TV and movie car chases was
probably wearing a copy of the Ansen Sprint slotted mag. The design came
out in 1967–1969 in 14x6, 14x7, 14x8, 15x7, 15x8 15x10, 15x12, 15x14, and 15x15
sizes.

There Are Only Three Ways to Get the Front End in the Air

There are three methods of hoisting the nose on a straight-axle Gasser: twin parallel leaf springs, a single transverse leaf spring and hairpins, or a pair of coil springs with a four-link and a Panhard. Much of what car guys build is based on what they remember from when they were young. They may have seen a race car with a transverse-mounted spring and so that's what they want, which is fine, but there may be a better setup for their particular car. According to Don, a '55 Chevy should not have transverse-spring setup. Though it was done in the '60s, Don feels the car is too big and heavy for a single center suspension point. The mass of the car should be spread out on dual leaf springs. Don also incorporates a sway bar whenever possible to make the car handle more predictably on the street.

"I only have one question for new customers: How are you going to use the car? From there I can make a determination how the front suspension should be done." — Don Waldron

Don's Personal Wheel Collection

Decades of wheeling and dealing obsolete rollers has netted Don a room full of rare pieces that he plans to put to good use. He says he's currently got a small enough backlog of customer car builds that he can finally start thinking about building cars for himself again. The plan is to do one to two cars for clients a year, and then put these beauties under his own roadster, Willys, Austin, and other projects.

01 American Racing 200S: the S stands for satin and the 200 meant the
wheel was guaranteed by AR to stay together at 200 mph. Other versions
of this wheel include the CP200, which was a unique chrome-plated wheel
with a cast-aluminum centersection that had several lugs to which the steel
hoop could be welded. The 200P is the same as a 200S, except the top of
the spokes and hoop are fully polished. These were available in 14x7, 14x8,
15x4.5, 15x7, 15x8.5, and 15x10. There was a two-piece magnesium version of
the 200S built in 16x8 and 16x10 sizes that was really cool because you could
take the narrow side of the 8-inch wheel and bolt it to the 10-inch wheel to
make a 12-inch wide wheel. It also didn't have a conventional drop-center
hoop because at the time, Top Fuel cars had issues with tires coming of the
drop-hoop bead when the tires lost shape at high wheel speeds. Tire screws
and bead-lock rings rendered this design obsolete.
02 Ever seen an American Racing Libre four-spoke? Probably not. It's a
one-piece road racing wheel built in 1965 for European cars. It was available
in cast aluminum and magnesium and only came in a 15x6-inch size.
03 The American Racing Torque Thrust came out in 1962 in magnesium
and then in aluminum in 1964. This is probably the most replicated and
mislabeled wheel ever produced. Torque Thrust D wheels were designed for
'63–'67 Corvettes. The D stood for disc brakes; the wheel center was shaped
to clear the early Vette brake caliper. According to Don, the wheel American
Racing now calls a D is actually an R wheel, which stands for Road Racing.
The R was designed for Shelby Mustangs.
04 This is an ultra-rare American Racing T70R double bead. Note the
second rib on the wheel lip and the flanges around each spoke. The name
came from the year the wheel was released: 1970. Don says these only
came in 15x7s.
05 The standard T70 came without the extra rib on the lip and spoke flange
accents.
06 American Racing also produced the more common T70R, a fully polished
five-spoke without the double bead but with the spoke flange accents.